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Aggregation at windmill artificial reefs: CPUE of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and pouting (Trisopterus luscus) at different habitats in the Belgian part of the North Sea.
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Agora 3D: evaluating 3D imaging technology for the research, conservation and display of museum collections
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Agropastoral and dietary practices of the northern Levant facing Late Holocene climate and environmental change: Isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Bronze to Iron Age Tell Tweini
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One of the largest isotopic datasets of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean region is evaluated, based on plants (n = 410), animals (n = 210) and humans (n = 16) from Tell Tweini (Syria). Diachronic analysis of plant and faunal specimens from four main periods of occupation: Early Bronze Age (2600–2000 BC), Middle Bronze Age (2000–1600 BC), Late Bronze Age (1600–1200 BC) and Iron Age (1200–333 BC) were investigated. Mean Δ13C results from seven plant species reveal emmer and free threshing wheat, olives, bitter vetch, rye grass and barley were adequately or well-watered during all periods of occupation. The grape Δ13C results suggest excellent growing conditions and particular care for its cultivation. The δ15N results indicate that especially the emmer and free threshing wheats received some manure inputs throughout the occupation sequence, while these were likely further increased during the Iron Age, encompassing also the olive groves and grape vineyards. Generally, domestic animals (cattle, sheep, goats) had C3 terrestrial diets and were kept together in similar environments. However, some animals consumed significant amounts of marine or C4 plants, possibly from disturbed habitats due to land use pressure or salt tolerant grasses and shrubs from wetland environments, which were recorded in the direct vicinity of the site. Middle Bronze Age humans consumed a C3 terrestrial diet with no measurable input from C4, freshwater or marine protein sources. Interestingly, the human diet was relatively low in animal protein and appears comparable to what is considered today a typical Mediterranean diet consisting of bread (wheat/barley), olives, grapes, pulses, dairy products and small amounts of meat. The combined isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Tell Tweini represents unbroken links in the food chain which create unparalleled opportunities to enhance our current understanding of environmental conditions, climate change and lifeways in past populations from the Eastern Mediterranean.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024
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Algal Taxonomy: a Road to Nowhere? Journal of Phycology
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Algal Taxonomy: a road to nowhere?
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The widespread view of taxonomy as an essentially retrogressive and outmoded science unable to cope with the current biodiversity crisis stimulated us to analyze the current status of cataloguing global algal diversity. Contrary to this largely pessimistic belief, species description rates of algae through time and trends in the number of active taxonomists, as revealed by the web resource AlgaeBase, show a much more positive picture. More species than ever before are being described by a large community of algal taxonomists. The lack of any decline in the rate at which new species and genera are described, however, is indicative of the large proportion of undiscovered diversity and bears heavily on any prediction of global algal species diversity and the time needed to catalogue it. The saturation of accumulation curves of higher taxa (family, order, and classes) on the other hand suggest that at these taxonomic levels most diversity has been discovered. This reasonably positive picture does not imply that algal taxonomy does not face serious challenges in the near future. The observed levels of cryptic diversity in algae, combined with the shift in methods used to characterize them, have resulted in a rampant uncertainty about the status of many older species. As a consequence, there is a tendency in phycology to move gradually away from traditional names to a more informal system whereby clade-, specimen- or strain-based identifiers are used to communicate biological information. Whether these informal names for species-level clades represent a temporary situation stimulated by the lag between species discovery and formal description, or an incipient alternative or parallel taxonomy, will be largely determined by how well we manage to integrate historical collections into modern taxonomic research. Additionally, there is a pressing need for a consensus about the organizational framework to manage the information about algal species names. An eventual strategy should preferably come out of an international working group that includes the various databases as well as the various phycological societies. In this strategy, phycologists should link up to major international initiatives that are currently being developed, such as the compulsory registration of taxonomic and nomenclatural acts and the introduction of Life Science Identifiers.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Aliens in Europe
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RBINS Staff Publications 2017
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All sunshine makes a desert'. Building interdisciplinary understanding of survival strategies of ancient communities in the arid Zerqa Triangle, Jordan Valley
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Archaeological studies typically describe arid areas as extremely unpleasant areas for human occupation and use. Without suggesting that arid areas are pleasant places, however, this paper provides a reassessment of the meaning of aridity for an area showing a vast amount of evidence of (past) human activities. Several climatic proxy data suggest that at the transition between the late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age (around c. 1300-1100 BC) the southern Levant witnessed more arid conditions, while after 1100 BC relatively moist conditions would have prevailed. In drylands, small changes in temperature and water availability can have large effects on subsistence options. Building on cooperation between an archaeologist and a water scholar, this paper offers an approach to study how people in the past were able to craft a livelihood in the arid environments in the southern Levant and elsewhere. Focusing on the Zerqa area, the paper explores the potential of this cooperation by studying effects of climatic changes at the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age through a modelling approach. Changes in temperature and moisture availability were simulated, showing that increased aridity could have been met by either naturally available water (especially groundwater) or artificially added water (although the timing appears to be crucial). While the model approach under discussion offers an approximation of the past, it shows the potential impact of climatic changes on the subsistence of past communities. It shows that details can mean the difference between survival or collapse.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2019
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Allostratigraphy and paleontology of the lower Miocene Chilcatay Formation in the Zamaca area, East Pisco basin, southern Peru
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RBINS Staff Publications 2019
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Ammonite extinction and nautilid survival at the end of the Cretaceous
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Ammonites from the Dababiya Quarry Corehole: Taxonomic notes and age assessment
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We describe a small collection of ammonites from the Dababiya Quarry corehole. It is almost entirely composed of heteromorph ammonites, in particular of scaphitids and baculitids. The presence of Indoscaphites pavana (Forbes 1848),which is for the first time reported from Egypt, points to a late to possibly latest Maastrichtian age for the interval DBD 80.36–DBD 99.11 of the Dababiya Quarry core. This is corroborated by preliminary data on planktonic foraminifera.
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